


A Frayed Knot

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Puns, Developing Relationship, Halloween Costumes, M/M, halloween party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2524859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire's punny Halloween costume is ruining the mood for the conversation that Enjolras was hoping to have with him, so he takes matters into his own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Frayed Knot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tumblr User enjoltaire-bear](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tumblr+User+enjoltaire-bear).



> For tumblr user [enjoltaire-bear](http://enjoltaire-bear.tumblr.com/)! I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> This stems from a joke involving this pun and Grantaire that the ever wonderful [bootsssss](http://bootsssss.tumblr.com/) and I came up with almost a year ago now, and in response to that, he drew some wonderful things that with his permission, I am including here because they're amazing and deserve to be shown in relation to this.
> 
> Probably in lieu of this.
> 
> Anyway, usual disclaimer applies as always! Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

“What are you up to?” Bossuet asked as he and Joly sat down next to Grantaire in the backroom of the Musain, glancing almost incredulously at Grantaire, whose customary glass of booze was absent and who was engrossed in reading something on his phone.

Grantaire didn’t even look up as he grunted, “Looking up stuff on Ebola.”

Joly looked impressed. “For the meeting tonight? Are you actually studying up on the subject matter? Because I was reading a really fascinating article about quarantine and human rights that I think Enjolras will definitely touch on, and—”

Now Grantaire did look up, blinking at Joly confusedly. “Huh?” he said, then laughed. “No. I’m looking up Ebola puns. Something I can use tonight. Although as a doctor, you might know some.”

Rolling his eyes, Joly turned pointedly to Bossuet to discuss something else, and Grantaire went back to his phone. Thus far, the Ebola puns were not panning out, though Grantaire was coming up with some pretty good ones for other uses, and was making mental note of them to use later. He clicked on a new page and scanned through the first pun, unable to stop the snort of laughter that followed, and when both Joly and Bossuet looked over at him, he told them simply, “I think I’ve found my Halloween costume for this year.”

“Do I even want to know?” Bossuet asked wearily, and Grantaire just grinned.

“I’m afraid not.”

* * *

 

“What in the hell are you supposed to be?” Bahorel asked as he adjusted the top of his Daenerys Targaryen costume.

“I’m a frayed knot,” Grantaire said proudly, puffing his chest out so that Bahorel could get a good look at his shirt and the piece of rope he had haphazardly hot glued to it.

“It’s a pun, see? I read it while I was looking for a good Ebola pun to torture Enjolras with — there really wasn’t one, unfortunately; apparently it’s a little too topical. There’s a string that walks into a bar, and—”

“A string walks into a bar?” Feuilly asked, adjusting the green wings for his Rhaegal costume, accidentally scratching himself with his fake claws in the process. “How does a string walk anywhere? They don’t have legs.”

Jehan snorted, petting Bahorel’s cat, Sir Purr, whose black fur was sticking up straight, clearly unhappy with his role as Drogon and the wings that they had strapped to the poor kitty’s back. “It’s a joke,” he told Feuilly patiently, the shiny makeup intending to look like Viserion’s pale scales glittering on his face. “You sound like Marlin from Finding Nemo.”

Feuilly stuck his tongue out at Jehan, who flipped him the bird, and Grantaire cleared his throat before continuing, “So the string walks into a bar and the bartender tells him they don’t serve strings. So the string goes outside and then comes back in, having tied himself in the middle and looking a bit worse for wear at the ends. When the bartender asks him ‘Aren’t you that string I told to leave a few minutes ago’, the string replies, ‘No, I’m a frayed knot.’”

He looked expectantly around the room, and after a long moment, Bahorel giggled, though he tried to muffle it. Feuilly was looking up at the ceiling as if seeking heavenly support, and Jehan just shook his head. “Jesus Christ,” Bahorel said, still giggling slightly. “You  _would_  pick not only a godawful pun to go as for Halloween but also a pun that involved the quest for alcohol.”

“Absolutely,” Grantaire said seriously. “You know how seriously I take alcohol, after all.”

A knock sounded on the door and Bahorel went to go answer it, laughing when he saw who it was. “Dude, it’s a cruel irony making Bossuet go as Chewbacca,” he chortled, letting Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta into his apartment. Bahorel was in fact dressed as Chewbacca, with a Chewbacca costume hoodie, the hood pulled up over his bald head. Musichetta was dressed dashingly as Han Solo, and Joly looked pristine in his Princess Leia outfit.

“Hey, I tried to get him to be Leia, but the buns wouldn’t stick to his head,” Joly said, though he was grinning. “Besides, we’re all in agreement that I’ve got the better figure to pull off the dress.”

Grantaire looked at him critically and raised his beer in a toast. “I’d agree with that.” Bossuet slapped Grantaire’s shoulder as they all laughed. Another knock sounded and Bahorel again answered it, this time having to stop Sir Purr from trying to make a hasty escape between Enjolras’s legs, and Grantaire looked Enjolras up and down before adding, “But I think Enjolras pulls off the dress best of all.”

Enjolras scowled at him and adjusted his red Phrygian hat. “It’s not a dress,” he snapped. “It’s a toga. I’m obviously Marianne, representing Liberty, not that you’d care about that.”

“I’m a frayed knot,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras’s scowl deepened.

Combeferre stepped into the room, dressed plainly but with a large equal sign hand-drawn on his shirt. “I didn’t have much time for a costume,” he said, as a means of explanation, “so I figured going as Equality to Enjolras’s Liberty was pretty easy to pull off.”

Courfeyrac also stepped into the room, dressed, interestingly enough, in a pastel-green button-down shirt rolled up to his sleeves, pastel pink shorts, boat shoes, a backwards baseball cap, and holding a red Solo cup. “I, uh, I kind of misunderstood the assignment,” he muttered.

“Fraternité versus frat guy,” Jehan said dryly, though he was grinning as everyone else tried to hide their laughter. “I can see where the confusion would come from.”

Enjolras, however, was still glaring at Grantaire, who was blinking innocently back at him. “Do you think that Liberty is something to joke about?” he demanded.

“I’m a frayed knot,” Grantaire said seriously.

Enjolras’s glare could have melted through metal. “Can’t you take anything seriously?” he asked through clenched teeth.

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him and said patiently, “I’m a frayed knot.”

Bossuet quickly steered Grantaire into the kitchen before Enjolras could murder him, though that didn’t stop Enjolras from staring after him, looking frustrated. Combeferre cleared his throat. “Would you like a drink?” he asked pleasantly. “Something to, ah, take the edge off?”

Enjolras glanced over at him and shrugged moodily, and Combeferre sighed. “It’s a joke, Enjolras. And a fairly old one at that. Pretty sure my grandfather told me that pun kind of old. I promise you Grantaire is not purposefully slighting Marianne or Liberty.”

“I know that,” Enjolras said waspishly, then sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just—” He cast a look back at the kitchen, where Grantaire was grinning and telling Musichetta seriously, “I’m a frayed knot”, and sighed again. “I was hoping to maybe talk to Grantaire tonight. About…things.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Combeferre said, understanding. “And I suppose him doing that pun in response to everything you say is probably not the environment you want for having a serious discussion about…feelings?” The last part was clearly a question, but Enjolras just shrugged in response, and Combeferre sighed. “Then perhaps you’ll have to delay the conversation until Grantaire is feeling a bit less punny. It’s not the end of the—ouch!”

The last part was aimed at Courfeyrac, who had pinched Combeferre’s arm, a panicked look on his face, and Courfeyrac practically yanked him away from Enjolras to hiss, “Don’t you dare tell him to put that conversation off!”

Combeferre rubbed his arm. “Why not? Clearly this isn’t a good night for him to be talking to Grantaire, what with the neverending puns and whatnot.”

As if to prove his point, Grantaire practically half-shouted, “I’m a frayed knot!” between bursts of laughter from the kitchen, and Enjolras’s expression turned frosty.

Combeferre raised an eyebrow at Courfeyrac. “See?”

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes. “I grant the situation is not ideal, but Enjolras has been trying to talk to Grantaire about this since Valentine’s Day, and he’s _always_  come up with a reason to put it off and I am  _not_  letting him put it off again! Or else you get to be the one who has to take his moody phone calls at two in the morning when he’s unable to concentrate because of Grantaire. Again. Savvy?”

“Fine,” Combeferre sighed, turning back to Enjolras, who was still staring at Grantaire, though at least now he appeared to be pouting instead of glaring. “So you should probably still try to talk to Grantaire at some point. Maybe after the pun thing has worn off a bit.”

Enjolras snorted. “If I’m going to talk to him, it’s going to be to tell him to shut up.”

“You can tell him to shut up but I guarantee his response will be ‘I’m a frayed knot’,” Combeferre said dryly. “I suspect he’ll say it to just about anything you’ll say.”

Enjolras’s expression turned contemplative, then devious. “Maybe not anything…” he muttered, before making a beeline toward Grantaire. “Grantaire, will you stop with the ‘a frayed knot’ thing?” he demanded, cutting into Grantaire’s conversation with Joly.

Grantaire grinned lazily at him. “I’m a frayed knot.”

Enjolras smiled as well before saying sweetly, “Then will you kiss me?”

Grantaire gaped at him. The indecision was playing out as plain as day on his face, and Enjolras waited patiently Grantaire struggled with it, because on the one hand, Grantaire had his pun of a Halloween costume to maintain. But on the other hand—

“Fuck it,” Grantaire said, and surged forward to kiss Enjolras.

Enjolras was honestly surprised that Grantaire had decided to go for kissing him rather than the pun, though he wasn’t entirely sure that he should have been. Grantaire’s feelings for him was the worst kept secret of all time, and Enjolras’s own feelings…well, to give it a political answer, Enjolras’s feelings had been evolving over the past year. So he met Grantaire’s kiss with some enthusiasm of his own, as clumsy and hesitant as that enthusiasm might be.

For a moment, their kiss was a perfect piece of bliss, promptly ruined by Bahorel whooping, Feuilly letting out an ear-splitting whistle, and the rest of the group breaking into applause. “Pay up, motherfuckers!” Joly crowed, and everyone dug good-naturedly for their wallets.

“Apparently Joly won the bet,” Enjolras told Grantaire, a little breathlessly. Grantaire just stared at him, not having recovered the power of speech quite yet, and Enjolras gave him a nervous smile. “So, uh, I was meaning to talk to you tonight, but I think that kiss might have done my talking for me?”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed. “Uh-uh,” he said. “You have some explaining to do, mister, because that kiss opened a gaping chasm of questions, not answers.”

Enjolras sighed and jerked his chin towards the far corner of the room, where they could at least pretend that their friends weren’t eavesdropping on their every word. “What do you want me to say?” he asked, blushing slightly. “I mean, I kissed you.”

“Yeah. And it was a  _great_  kiss, and I’m sincerely hoping that this means that I can kiss you basically anytime I want in the near future—”

“Maybe not _any_ time,” Enjolras interrupted.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Fine, at preapproved times in the near future. But I’ve been looking forward to this for…well, forever, basically, and now I want to hear you actually say the words that accompanied what happened back there. Or otherwise I might just not believe that it actually did happen.”

“Fine,” Enjolras said, blushing even more. “I like you. A lot. And I would very much like to take you out on a date at some point. That good enough for you?”

Grantaire was grinning but quickly turned his expression into something more sober before leaning in, kissing him on the lips and fluttering his eyelashes at him before telling him seriously, “I’m a frayed knot.”

Enjolras’s resulting groan of exasperation could be heard for miles.

**Author's Note:**

> Annnd if you enjoyed the incredible art in this fic (as I know you did), check out [the amazing follow-up art](http://bootsssss.tumblr.com/post/101414376432/a-treat-for-kjack89-who-requested) that bootsssss did as a treat for yours truly!


End file.
